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On paper there was a lot about “The Cellar” (opening in select theaters and available to stream on Shudder beginning Friday, April 15) that appealed to me. I dig Ireland. I dig horror movies. I dig Elisha Cuthbert. I didn’t dig “The Cellar,” but then again I’m not much for physical labor … I’ll see myself out.
Cuthbert stars as Keira Woods, an online advertising executive who runs a firm with her husband Brian (Eoin Macken of last year’s awesome Megan Fox vehicle “Till Death”). They move to a manor in the Irish countryside for the benefit of their children – displeased teenager Ellie (Abby Fitz) and easygoing youngster Steven (Dylan Fitzmaurice Brady).
Faster than you can say sláinte, shit starts going sideways at the house. Ellie disappears during a blackout. The authorities in the form of Detective Brophy (Andrew Bennett) assume the girl ran away from home. Keira knows better and starts taking notice of the mathematical symbols engraved on walls and above doorways throughout the house. Turns out the manor’s former occupant was a mathematics professor who attempted to kick it with satanic symbol Baphomet (as one’s wont to do) and the basement is a portal to painful purgatory. (Try flipping this fucker, Property Brothers!)
Writer/director Brendan Muldowney stretches his 2004 short film “The Ten Steps” to feature length with “The Cellar.” I haven’t seen the short, but I suspect this subject matter is best behooved by that format. Muldowney finds his footing in the late goings with palpable tension and vivid visuals, but everything leading up to the conclusion is very wash, rinse, repeat. I was so bored by the proceedings that I resorted to ogling Cuthbert and began feeling old as the actress (who’s a year younger than me) is now playing a mother to teenagers.
Speaking of Cuthbert, this is entirely her movie and she’s quite good in it. She’s done horror before with 2005’s Dark Castle remake of “House of Wax” (a guilty pleasure of mine) and Roland Joffé’s 2007 offering “Captivity” (a flick I actively dislike), but it’s been a hot minute since she’s dipped her toes into these genre waters. “The Cellar” falls somewhere smack dab in between her past horror efforts.
I enjoy haunted house movies as much if not more so than your average horrorhound, but “The Cellar” hews closer qualitatively to Jan de Bont’s “The Haunting” than it does Robert Wise’s.